Casino Graz Intenational is won by Melkumyan

2/24/2014 – Over the course of the winter vacation as it is known in the northern hemisphere, and summer vacation in the southern, the first edition of the Casino Graz Open was held in the plush Casino Graz in Graz, Austria. The first edition had a good draw, with a strong contingent of titled players, inlcuding top seed Li Chao (2697 FIDE). Armenian Hrant Melkumyan took the gold. Illustrated report.

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Over the course of the winter vacation as it is known in the northern hemisphere, and summer vacation in the southern, the first edition of the Casino Graz Open was held in the plush Casino Graz in Graz, Austria. There were two opens held, with one as a pure open for all, whereas the B tournament was restricted to players rated under 2000 Elo. Both were nine-round swiss tournaments played at 40 moves in 90 minutes and the rest in 30 minutes with 30 seconds increment per move as of move one.

Li Chao (right) was the top seed with nearly 2700 Elo, but was unable to shine

For many it was a chance to spend a week playing chess

For those who prefer less strenous activities, there were adventure excursions to Kilimanjaro

14-year-old FM Veerappan Aravindh Chithambaram was the top junior, and came
tenth with a respectable 2498 performance and an IM norm to boot

After a strongly fought event, with five sharing 5.0/6 after six rounds, Armenian Hrant Melkumyan detached himself from the rest as he finished with 7.5/9, a full point ahead of his rivals. Top Austrian GM Markus Ragger squeezed into second, edging out five others on tiebreak, while Indian IM Ankit Rajpara took third with the same score, and a grandmaster norm.

See also

12/30/2017 – The "King Salman World Blitz & Rapid Championships 2017" in Riyadh from Decemer 26th to 30th. At the half way point of the Blitz Championship, the defending champ Sergey Karjakin leads with 9 / 11. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is a half point back followed by Peter Svidler and a trio of Chinese: Wang, Ding and Yu on 8 / 11. In the Women's Pia Cramling has a full point lead with 9½ / 11. Watch live with Rounds 11 to 22 from 12:00 Noon CET (6:00 AM EST) on Saturday with commentary by E. Miroshnichenko & WGM K. Tsatsalashvili.

See also

12/6/2017 – Imagine this: you tell a computer system how the pieces move — nothing more. Then you tell it to learn to play the game. And a day later — yes, just 24 hours — it has figured it out to the level that beats the strongest programs in the world convincingly! DeepMind, the company that recently created the strongest Go program in the world, turned its attention to chess, and came up with this spectacular result.

Video

The introductory position of the Kasparov Gambit can occur after 1 d4,1 Nf3 and 1 c4, which can appeal to a wide range of players. The usual move order is 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 Nf3 cxd4 4 Nxd4 e5!? 5 Nb5 d5 6 cxd5 Bc5 bringing us to a very sharp position. On this 60 mins, FIDE Senior Trainer Andrew Martin argues the case from the Black side, showing both classic Kasparov masterpieces and games from the present day and suggests that White's defensive task is not easy. This is a practical gambit which will help players at all levels to win more games. It is ideal for must-win situations with Black. It is a gambit that White cannot decline,as if he does, Black gets a good position instantly. White must take up the cudgels and fight!